


Lose Yourself

by FitzLemur



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Papyrus/Toriel - Freeform, Sort Of, Toriel leaves the Ruins before Frisk falls, Waffling back and forth on if I want to actually make the relationship a thing, based on a prompt I saw on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 05:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15066584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FitzLemur/pseuds/FitzLemur
Summary: Sans convinces Toriel to leave the Ruins for just one day. It doesn't go as she expected.ReaderRose was discussing the lack of any material for this ship on Tumblr and this idea was tossed around. I decided to try my hand at interpreting it.I don't know what I'm doing anymore.





	Lose Yourself

Toriel inhaled deeply, her breath shaking with nerves. She looked again into her bag a third time to make sure she had everything she needed (she did, just like the other two times). She walked the house, double checking that the beds were made and the sink was empty and the books were in order and—good grief, Sans was right. She was going crazy.  
It had been several weeks that she would meet up with the stranger on the other side of the door and exchange jokes. It was a silly thing to build a friendship over, but the countless years in the Ruins had taken their toll on the former queen. She needed someone, someone who wouldn’t run away at the sight of her… someone who wouldn’t leave and never come back. When in utter shock she heard the two sharp knocks, she responded almost reflexively. The visitor seemed just as surprised to hear someone answer, but he rattled off his joke and Toriel just couldn’t control herself. She laughed until she cried, and her sides were sore, and her chest ached, and it was the best she’d felt in ages. When she finally regained composure, she replied with the best joke she could remember. Hearing the laugh on the other side was almost an even better feeling.   
The rest was history. Everyday, around the same time, the jokester would knock on the door and the two would exchange awful puns, cracking each other up as if there were nothing wrong in the world. Toriel even dusted off an old joke book that she found in the old Home; she was admittedly quite rusty and figured it wouldn’t hurt. She would eventually learn that the comedian was named Sans and was a skeleton living in Snowdin. This surprised her, as skeleton monsters were incredibly rare in the Underground. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met one. Toriel never revealed her name or anything else about herself, and gratefully Sans never asked.   
One day she let slip that when Sans knocked the first time, she had been staring at the door, contemplating leaving. She laughed it off insincerely, but there was quiet from the other side of the door. When the skeleton spoke up, his voice was softer than usual and full of concern.  
“why don’t you?”  
The question caught the boss monster off guard.   
“Wh-why don’t I what?”  
“why don’t you leave?”   
It was the first time that he had ever inquired about her problems. She gathered from the tone of his voice that he’d been wanting to ask for a long time. Sadness did not suit Sans. She sighed.  
“I cannot, Sans… there are certain duties I must attend to. Besides, it would not be prudent for me to be seen.” She winced internally at how odd that must have sounded. If it bothered Sans, he didn’t show it in his voice.   
“look, old lady…” (Toriel grinned. She found it endearing when he called her that.) “believe me when i say that i know how it feels to be working and working at something and you just can’t seem to succeed. maybe we don’t have to give up… but we can’t just lock ourselves away from the rest of the world. that’s not what… that’s not what those we lost would have wanted.”  
Now she was really taken aback. Tears welled up on her eyes. How had he been able to so perfectly describe what she was feeling? As if he could hear her thoughts, he chuckled and said, “lucky guess.”   
Another few moments of silence passed.   
“you wouldn’t have to leave forever. you could still live here. but you need to get out or you’ll go crazy, if you haven’t already.”  
Toriel laughed at that, but she was still crying. “I… I don’t know, Sans…” While his offer was appealing, she couldn’t just waltz about the Underground. In the Ruins it was different; no one recognized her as the ex-queen. If people were to find out where she had been all these years, it would be a disaster, to say the least.   
Once again, Sans seemed to read her mind. “you could stay at my place. i can get you there without being seen.”   
A small hope rekindled in Toriel’s heart. Could she really leave the Ruins, for just one day? She scolded herself silently; of course she could. She was behaving like a child who was scared to go to school. Before she could answer, the skeleton’s voice came again from the other side.  
“knock, knock.”  
A smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “Who’s there?”  
“yukon.”  
“Yukon who?”  
“yukon’t say no to an offer like that.”  
And then she had howled again from the sheer absurdity of it and she had somehow ended up agreeing to spend the day at a skeleton’s house, and that was how she found herself in her current situation. She gave the house one more once-over—this was the last time, honestly—put out the fireplace and headed downstairs. She walked the long corridor until reaching the stately door that marked the exit to the Ruins. Toriel felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. How many times had she stood outside this door, trying to talk herself into leaving, into going to confront Asgore, into doing anything but sitting there and watching children march off to their deaths? But she had always convinced herself to go back upstairs. She didn’t want to admit it, proud as she was, but she was afraid.  
It was finally time to show some bravery. For the first time initiating the conversation, Toriel reached up with a paw and knocked twice on the door, the sound echoing through the chamber. It wasn’t long before there came a familiar “who’s there?”  
“Red.”  
“red who?”  
“Ready or not, here I come.”  
And with that, Toriel pushed upon the door to the Ruins.  
The first thing she was aware of was a blast of cold air washing over her, followed by more light than she’d seen in years. There she was, facing the woods outside of Snowdin Village. It was just as she remembered it. She frowned. Where was Sans? She stepped out, a chill running through her body as the snow crunched beneath her paws.   
“Sans?” She called out, continuing along the trail. “Are you there?”  
There was no response. The wind whistling through the trees seemed to be much eerier than she recalled. Hadn’t Sans just been on the other side of the door? Where could he have run off to that quickly, and why? Maybe this was a mistake. She should probably just go back—  
“what’s wrong? don’t you wanna shake my hand?”   
She spun around and came face to face with a hooded figure. She frowned confusedly. “…Sans?”   
The figure seemed somewhat disappointed. He repeated “…shake my hand?”, as if things were not going as he expected. Toriel grasped his hand firmly in hers and a loud, rude noise echoed through the silence.   
A few moments passed before she doubled over laughing. “The whoopee cushion in the hand trick? I haven’t seen that in ages!” Sans—she didn’t know who he was trying to fool, it was very clearly him—chuckled, throwing his hood off.   
“never gets old, huh?” And with that, Toriel got her first look at the only friend she had. She didn’t know quite what she had been expecting, but the face fit the voice perfectly. The thing that most immediately drew her attention was the massive smile that seemed to almost take up the entire lower half of his face. (Alright, maybe she was exaggerating a bit. But it was a big smile.) It never seemed to fade; even as he spoke, his cheerful grin remained fixed in place, his mouth not opening or closing. This almost unnerved her before she remembered that skeletons didn’t actually need to move their mouths to speak. Skeletons were weird. The light in his eyes matched the smile, and the skeleton’s entire visage seemed to just radiate mirth.   
His outfit was strange. Upon a cursory glance it would seem he had dressed appropriately for the weather, what with the winter coat and gloves, but a closer examination revealed a pair of athletic shorts and a pair of slippers. It was an odd combination, but it was so him.   
“i’d been hoping to scare ya,” Sans remarked, and Toriel grinned.   
“Is that so? Well, you’ll have to try a little harder than that.”  
“oh yeah? what would you have done differently?”  
Toriel put her paw to her chin, feigning pensiveness. “While the spooky woods are a good choice of venue, you could do a bit more to create an atmosphere. Maybe break a tree branch and hide, or something like that.”  
While she was fairly certain that he had been just joshing with her, he now looked quite attentive. That old desire to be a teacher washed over her again. “i see. what else?”  
“Your voice isn’t exactly intimidating. Try to be a little creepier.”  
“L i k e t h i s ?”  
The sudden change in tone caught her off guard, but not quite as much as the disappearance of the lights in his eyes. An odd falling sensation wracked her stomach for a moment. Perhaps the most disturbing was that Sans’ mouth remained ever-smiling through the whole affair.   
“That is actually quite terrifying, Sans,” she remarked, getting over the sensation and smiling.  
Sans winked and shrugged, turning to one side as if there were an audience watching. “i have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He turned back to her, and in a more serious tone, said, “we’d best be going. The dogs will be patrolling this area soon, and I imagine you’d prefer not to be found by them.”   
Toriel’s heart sank. Dogs… there were Royal Guard on patrol in Snowdin? Asgore really was serious about capturing humans. She tried not to think too hard about the children who had come and gone, but she failed. Shaking her head, she turned to him. “How will we get through town without being seen? Or smelled, for that matter? Do you know some sort of shortcut?”   
Sans smiled—well, more than he already had been. “you could say that.” He held out his hand again (thankfully having already removed the whoopee cushion). Toriel took it and suddenly they were in a house.   
She said nothing for a moment, allowing the situation to register. Then she turned to the skeleton, who shrugged again. “like i said. tricks.” He sat down on the couch and patted the cushion beside him. “welcome to chateau skeleton.” Toriel sat beside him and took in the decor. It was quite homey; more so, ironically, than Home had felt. She did her best to ignore the untidiness for now, though she would be sure to clean things up later.  
“It’s lovely, Sans. It is nice to see another house besides my own, after so long,” she said earnestly. Sans nodded.   
“it’s nice to have a guest. not that papyrus isn’t good company, but it’s good to shake things up every now and then, y’know?” He winked. “i get bonely sometimes.”   
Toriel laughed. “Oh, so you know things besides knock-knock jokes? You are quite the humerus fellow, my dear.” She inwardly celebrated. She’d been holding on to that one for a while. Joking aside, Toriel felt somewhat ashamed that she had forgotten about Sans’s brother. She had just been so caught up in the adventure of it all that his existence had slipped her mind. “Where is Papyrus, by the way? I’d love to meet him as well!”   
Sans closed his eyes knowingly. “he’s usually out jogging around this hour.” Toriel appreciated the way his voice filled with warmth as he spoke of his brother. It reminded her of the way her children—best not to follow that train of thought. Sans didn’t invite her over to cry. This was going to be her one day without worrying. The skeleton spoke up again, snapping her out of it. “in fact, here he comes now…”  
Sure enough, Toriel could make out footsteps approaching. The impact of the jogger’s feet on the snow was inordinately loud, giving the impression that whoever owned said feet was either notably large or extremely exaggerated in his movements. If Sans’s stories of him were accurate, both were probably the case.   
The footsteps grew louder and were soon accompanied by enthusiastic, rhythmic shouting. Toriel was surprised that she could hear him while he was still that far away. A few seconds later, the door flew open dramatically.  
“SANS!!! YOU’D BETTER HAVE CLEANED UP THOSE SOCKS, YOU LAZYBONES!”  
Standing in the doorframe was a tall skeleton, practically twice Sans’s height. He had an elastic sweatband on his skull and wore a tank top inscribed with the word “JOGBOY”. Like Sans, he wore a pair of gloves, but other than that showed no signs of dressing for the cold. Unlike Sans, who bore a constant smile, the face of the newcomer was incredibly expressive and dynamic, and there was a boldness in his eyes that was the antithesis to Sans’s cool demeanor.   
The intense gaze found her. “…SANS? WHY IS THERE A STRANGER ON OUR COUCH??”  
As her eyes met his, something came over her, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She found herself unable to look away.   
Sans’s brother was perhaps the most handsome monster she had ever seen.


End file.
